Southport & Birkdale (5pts) 158 all out lost to Hightown (20 pts) 160 for 7 by three wickets

Southport & Birkdale (5pts) 158 all out lost to Hightown (20 pts) 160 for 7 by three wickets

SOUTHPORT and Birkdale have acquired the entirely unwanted habit of losing close cricket matches.

Three of Rimmer Scaffolding-sponsored S&B's six Premier League defeats this season fall into the ‘if only’ category.

And when Hightown's opening bowler, Nathan Heathcliffe-Core joined Gareth Glynne-Jones in the middle on Saturday evening, with 33 runs needed for victory and only three wickets in hand, it seemed that yet another nerve-jangler was on its way.

They deserved them too. On a wicket that few batsmen could trust, the visitors boasted, in Shaun Vosloo, the only player to score a half-century in the match.

Not only that, but in Heathcliffe-Core and Glynne-Jones, two cricketers who displayed sound technique and admirable coolness under what one or two of S&B's fielders incessantly reminded them was "enormous pressure".

With such experience to draw on, the task of facing Dave Britton on a dodgy track – albeit accompanied by the fearsome piping of S&B's sledgelets – was probably fairly straightforward. Fletcher's men had no answer to a cocktail of hwyl and pluck.

Nonetheless, the home team could also claim that they had a meagre ration of whatever luck was going round on Saturday.

Mark Baker's poor run continued when he fell victim to a lifter from Heathcliffe-Core and Mark Fletcher's strong belief that the ball which ‘trapped’ him lbw was going down leg was strongly supported by a Hightown player well-positioned to judge. There was, though, no doubt about the crucial bat and pad catch that Patrick Jackson offered to Anthony Symondson at silly-point off Yousuf Pathan.

And when Aston slashed Ian Sutcliffe to Glynne-Jones in the gully straight after the drinks break, S&B were 61 for 4 and clearly in danger of collapse.

But Fletcher's batting line-up amounts to far more than one Australian, no matter how prolific.

Jason Marsh, Chris Firth and Josh Hine have all played match-winning innings over the past two months and this trio managed to ensure that the home side had a clearly defendable total of 161 on the board at tea.

All three showed the fight S&B's spectators have come to expect from them and Marsh's pull to the ever-safe hands of Phil Whelan at mid-wicket is as near as this batsman has come to giving his wicket away in 2007.

All of Hightown's bowlers enjoyed the conditions. Pathan and Symondson combined in three dismissals while the former S&B's left-arm-spinner, Graham Jones, claimed the important wicket of Firth before removing Dean Skelton and Dave Britton with successive deliveries and finishing 3 for 22.

Going out after tea with the task of protecting a total of 158, Fletcher should not have needed to remind his bowlers of the paramount need to deny Hightown easy runs.

Well after five overs, Sutcliffe and Vosloo had 45 on the board. So maybe a word or two would not have been out of place after all. Length might have been mentioned. And line.

Fortunately, Dale Cranston then had Sutcliffe caught in the off-side ring by Jason Marsh and the introduction of Patrick Jackson put a break on the scoring rate.

Indeed, Jackson and the excellent David Britton gave S&B every chance of rescuing the game by taking six wickets for 62 runs in 18 overs, Vosloo perishing courtesy of Mark Fletcher's 13th slip catch of the season while Pathan was well taken by Baker off Britton. It was not, however, enough.